The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for providing program recommendations and more particularly to systems and methods for providing program recording recommendations from multimedia searching based on viewer profiles.
Recently, Digital Video Recorders, also known as Personal Video Recorders have begun to gain in popularity with consumers. Much like the impact that video cassette recorders (VCR) made when first introduced, these devices provide an even easier and more powerful way for consumers to record programs and watch them at a later time.
Digital video recorders are desirable because they are more robust and feature laden than conventional VCRs. For example, digital video recorders have the capability of concurrently recording incoming streaming video data using storage drive technology and playing back previously recorded video data. As currently available, a digital video recorder receives incoming streaming video data from the output interface of a standard set-top box configured to receive the broadcast signals from a multiple-service operator (MSO), such as a cable provider. These digital video recording devices are also a potentially valuable source of user programming information since they can be uniquely identified in a network and have two-way communication capabilities.
As powerful as these digital video recording devices are, the burden still lies with the consumer to keep track of current programs and to record the programs of interest to them. For example, the consumer typically has to navigate any printed or electronic guides to determine which programs to record and then the consumer has to program the recording device to record the desired programs. Furthermore, these conventional programming guides are also difficult to navigate and given the ever increasing variety of programming available, it has become quite cumbersome to actually find programming which is of interest to the viewer.
Accordingly it would be desirable to have a more robust recommendation system and method which efficiently and effectively collects viewer preference information and can provide viewers program recommendations by multimedia searching programming content.